The right to vote is a fundamental freedom that protects the other essential freedoms that Americans hold dear. It is at the heart of what it means to be an American citizen. Elections in American should be free, fair, and accessible, and voters should not have to overcome burdensome barriers to cast their ballot.
A study by Demos, a liberal research center, found that a median-income couple that invested in 401(k)’s for 40 years with fees averaging 1.6 percent a year would achieve $354,850 in assets at average savings rates, but only after paying $154,794 in investment fees.
POLITICO led this morning with a piece arguing that Mitt Romney's clay feet on the subject of national security threaten to turn him into John Kerry. I don't quite buy the comparison, however Kerry-like Mr Romney may be in his stiffness and aloofness; Mr Romney never claimed national security as a core competency, as Mr Kerry did.
The Nation's Brentin Mock reports on a new study, "Bullies at the Ballot Box" by Common Cause and Demos, which merits the attention of everyone concerned about the abuse of voting rights. As Mock reports,
Iowa’s Democratic attorney general and Republican secretary of state made a show of solidarity last month in announcing they were fighting a lawsuit that challenges the emergency powers the secretary of state has given himself to purge registered voters he isn’t convinced are U.S. citizens.
“We’re working together here to make sure that people who are not eligible to vote don’t vote,” said Attorney General Tom Miller.
The scrutinization of True the Vote, and their voter-stalking Tea Party co-signers across the nation, is growing. Today, Common Cause and Demos released a report called “Bullies at the Ballot Box” that raises awareness about groups determined to challenge voters at the polls, even at risk of intimidating voters. Says the report:
ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Missouri makes a list of ten states at risk for “voter bullying,” in a report released by the voting rights groups Common Cause and Demos.
A very different kind of organizing campaign than AFSCME’s is going on in states across the country with a single undemocratic purpose: to keep voters away from the ballot box.
A swarm of right-wing loyalists with intimidation on their minds can be expected to descend on polling places in minority neighborhoods this November, two public interest groups warned government officials Monday.
In a new report titled, “Bullies at the Ballot Box,” Demos and Common Cause describe campaigns by conservative groups—particularly the tea party-affiliated True the Vote—to train and deploy as many as 1 million persons to police the polls.
A swarm of right-wing loyalists with intimidation on their minds can be expected to descend on polling places in minority neighborhoods this November, two public interest groups warned government officials Monday.
In a new report titled, “Bullies at the Ballot Box,” Demos and Common Cause describe campaigns by conservative groups—particularly the tea party-affiliated True the Vote—to train and deploy as many as 1 million persons to police the polls.
Missouri is at a higher risk for bullying this year but it's not at school. Missouri has made a list of ten states at risk for voter bullying this election year. Missouri made the list because it is expected to have some highly contested races.
Four years ago today, Lehman Brothers collapsed as Hank Paulson and his colleagues made the fateful decision that free market principles demanded that at least one bank crippled by the deteriorating financial system had to be sacrificed at the altar of moral hazard. These “deciders” had no idea of the firestorm they were igniting. They did not foresee that the financial system that had evolved during 30 years of deregulation (based on specious economic theory and ideology) was so interconnected that it would collapse like a house of cards. Within a few weeks, the U.S.
While Latinos acquire slightly less student-loan debt than their white counterparts, on average $49,700 as opposed to $54,000, this does not mean that they are in any better position when – or if – they finish school. Many Latinos opt to work through college instead of taking on a large debt burden, Maldonado said, and that leads to a longer amount of time spent in school and a lower chance of actually graduating.
According to statistics from the public policy organization Demos, 31 percent of Latino students drop out of college.
Charleston, S.C. -- Four days after a gunman killed nine inside the basement of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the doors were once again open to welcome congregants.
"We ask that everything be done with dignity. There will be no backpacks, fanny packs or cameras. This is for security purposes," a man doing crowd control at the church told the swarm of people assembled near the door.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Many Americans treat the United States' history of racism, and the racist sentiments that persist in the country today, as background noise. But following Wednesday's massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, that noise has gotten louder. And Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who has been charged with murdering all nine of the victims, has become the face of this unchecked tension.
To the delight of many black residents in Charleston, South Carolina, Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday called for the removal of the Confederate flag from the state's capitol grounds.
Thanks to certain progressive senators and Democratic presidential hopefuls, interest in debt-free college is at an all-time high. But what happens next is very much uncertain — people don’t even agree on what debt-free college means, much less how (or whether) to make it a reality. Demos, which put the idea on Washington’s radar via a white paper last May, is now trying to tackle both issues — by wrangling a common definition of the idea, and starting to codify it via Higher Education Act reauthorization.
